The True Detective (54 page)

V
ERNON IS LUNGING ON
. H
E HARDLY LOOKS BACK ANYMORE
. Salt and tears and perspiration are in the way, making visibility an on-again, off-again blur. At the same time there seem to be moths in his throat. They are fluttering there, reproducing there, not allowing air or even moisture as he lunges on, as his lungs squeal for air, as he keeps walking-running, running-walking, over sidewalk, past parking meters, down the wrong way on a one-way street, moving, nearly stumbling, into and around an occasional pedestrian, between parked cars, past store windows, thinking oh God, oh God, what to do, what to do . . . ?

He staggers and stumbles on. He crosses an intersection. Now he is going uphill. His legs do not wish to move anymore, but he keeps lifting them one after the other, seeming to think only that he must get away, he must get away, because he doesn’t want to die, he doesn’t want to be hurt, and he will know what to do, if he gets away he will know what to do . . . He can’t even think now, but if he gets away he will know what to do.

As in a dream, as on a treadmill in a dream of running to escape, to escape the Viet Cong with their bamboo knives, he finds himself filled with a sensation of going nowhere, making no progress as they close on him and are going to torture him, are going to slice and shred his skin and penis with razor blades of bamboo. Oh it was so rude not to stop and talk when he was asked to, it was so impolite to run off even if it was his
legs, or his stomach, doing the running just because they were so frightened and couldn’t do anything else. Why didn’t he stop if he only wanted to talk? Why did he keep coming after him if he only wanted to talk? What sense did that make?

His scalp is ringing as he staggers on. He seems to hear nothing anymore. He tries to look again, to see if the man is still coming after him, but turning his head he perceives only salted sweat in his eyes, sees nothing, and tries to rub his eyes free of the stinging, only making it worse, as he drags on, his legs seeming to remain on each step a slight distance behind him while his lungs squeal and squeal and squeal.

Continuing up the hill, climbing up the long gradual hill before him, dragging his feet along, he has to stop, let himself stop as he bends over at the waist, gripping his knees in his hands, nearly toppling, weaving some as he tries, works to draw in oxygen. And is crying to himself. Oh, God, please forgive me, please forgive me, as he gets himself partially straightened upright again, and walking on again, dragging his feet as he continues to gasp for air, telling himself to keep going, to keep going, at all costs to keep going.

A rare car passes, going the other way, as he is staggering out of the downtown area. The river is to his right, the great width of water across to Maine, and he glimpses a freighter, maybe two freighters, tied there along the docks, and a small mountain of white salt, too, a world of salt half a dozen stories high and a block long which it seems to take him a lifetime to pass.

Ahead then, as the uphill grade continues, there are open spaces and no more buildings next to the road. He keeps dragging and stumbling on, telling himself not to look back and not to give up now, to keep going at all costs, to keep going.

He goes on. It is as he pulls up and bends over yet again in an attempt to draw in air, and as he is telling himself not to look
back, not to look back, that he swivels some in his pain and lifts his eyes enough to gaze down the hill he has been climbing, that he sees the big detective walking after him, not wearing a coat anymore and not running as he is coming uphill, but walking, still walking after him, oh dear God, still walking after him.

Vernon presses on once more, going uphill one step at a time, and feeling yet again that he is on a treadmill and making no progress. Going on. Going on. Going on. Covering a distance of a yard, and in time a distance of another yard. And crying to himself yet again in confusion and in panic, crying without shedding any tears, crying, dear God, to be left alone, to be given a chance to think, that’s all, to be given a chance to think, to be left alone and given a chance to think dear God of what in the world to do.

He gains added yards, in time, but is feeling sickness now in his stomach with the man behind him.
Why doesn’t he leave me alone!
If a car appeared, he thinks, he would try to get in front of it, try to be hit by it, to get away from that which is behind him.

Alas then, as he goes, he happens to get his eyes enough above sea level to realize there is something overhead in the air, and so it is that he glimpses the high new bridge, the long green bridge up there reaching and curving through the sky on its way to Maine a mile or so away. The bridge inspires him; he doesn’t know why, but the bridge inspires him. He is on a small unused road, he sees, which passes under the great overhead structure. Yet it is something. And as he staggers in the direction of the bridge, he sees that there are fields of brush and weeds spreading away from the roadside here, reaching down over the riverbank, in among sheds and rail sidings there, and spreading in under the bridge itself in its oddly deceptive distance ahead, for even as he moves and moves, gains yard after yard, the bridge seems always to remain in the distance, to lift higher into the sky but to
remain evermore ahead, evermore beyond reach. Is he moving? he wonders. Is he moving at all? Why doesn’t he come under the bridge? How can he do anything at all if he never comes under the bridge?

He is vomiting then. He hasn’t looked back, but something of the man suddenly grabbing him from behind has come into his throat and has him vomiting and heaving to get it out. Nor does he stop or go on either; rather he weaves in a near circle as he vomits and pulls strings of spittle and saliva from his throat, as he crouches and duck-walks and tries to spit free the bile catching in his throat, and tries still to go on.

And does. And doesn’t look back. Goes on. Drags his feet. Aims for the weeds and world of brush under the bridge. Goes on, still believing he can make it in under the bridge, if he will only ever get there.

L
EAVING PAVEMENT
,
STAGGERING INTO BRUSH
,
WEEDS
,
AND
sand under the bridge, Dulac also bends at the waist and retches, tries to spit away his lifelong accumulation of cigarette tar and smoke, a string of slime he has to bite at and pull away. And he comes up looking, gasping as he keeps staggering like a drunk man, looking to see what is before him, to see where the suspect
has gone, thinking, too, he may need to reach for his pistol now, may need to go for it, to knock the bastard down.

Dulac has been here before, more or less. It is an underworld under the bridge, within its overhead song, of bridge posts the size of giant sequoia trees reaching a hundred, a hundred and twenty-five feet from their concrete footings the size of garages to the bottom of the massive overhead ceiling. There are footpaths, and dirt roads for city vehicles, small and large piles of sand, pebbles, gravel, cross-stacks of creosoted ties, fences with chained gates, a maze of dozens of obstructions behind which to hide, behind which to attempt to recover some wind, as he is attempting to do himself as he sways and staggers forward and sideways one step at a time, looking, scanning, trying to see anything, to pick up any movement or color.

Thinking, too, uttering to himself,
goddamn him, goddamn him!
And thinking for the first time, even though he withdrew his pistol earlier, of firing a round through the suspect, knocking him down forever, putting a hole through his chest or stomach through which a garden hose might easily slide, leaving a gloss over his eyes—but not removing his pistol this time, not yet at least, as he continues to scan for telltale signs.

He tries to hold still to listen, too, but can draw in nothing above the constant singing-wire sound of so many car tires overhead or between his own massive mouth and nostril intakes of air, his facial openings foaming and flaring like a beast’s, then granting the momentary passage of quiet.

In merely a moment, though, as he continues to sidestep in his attempt to regain breath, to recapture equilibrium, he spots something, glimpses a flash of movement, of color, somewhat to the left, back in the direction of the street. Already, automatically, carefully, he has reached to unlatch, to touch his pistol as
he is pivoting to scan that angle, to look to identify what he saw, and where, to see more, thinking
he’s here! He’s here! That wasn’t a goddamn bird—he’s here!

He takes a step in that direction. His footsteps cannot be heard. He decides to go ahead and remove his weapon and does so. He is trying to think, trying to calculate something. Anything. He can’t hear me, he thinks. He will have to look, he will have to look. From that footing? The next footing? The next? They look side by side from here. From that roll of weeds, those piles of washed stones? A foolish move, he tells himself. A foolish move to move at all, because his inclination had been to continue down through the maze to the railroad tracks, to the tidal river flowing by, to look for him there. He wouldn’t have guessed that he’d double back.

He takes more steps, watching, looking hard. He kneels, inhaling, exhaling, watching. He is alive, he thinks of himself. His heart has not failed him. He is alive and breathing well enough now, and that sonofabitch is here before him somewhere, here within a thirty- or forty-degree angle. The sound of car tires keeps singing; there is nothing else to hear. He straightens, takes more careful steps.

It’s time to be extraordinarily alert, he thinks. Each second. Eyes alive. Stalk that sonofabitch. He is here. He is within a hundred feet. Give all to this. All concentration. Let this speak to Eric Wells, he thinks. Do this well. Let this mean something.

Dulac takes more steps, pauses, takes more steps, slowly and carefully, watching. The wolf is right here, he tells himself. Believe it. Believe in yourself. The fucking wolf has killed and eaten Little Red Riding Hood and you are going to take the wolf. It is here, and you are the hunter in the forest, you are
they
and it is not your option to lose concentration. You will not; you will
pause and hold and take steps, and pause and hold and take steps, and you will flush the sonfabitch.

His approach seems not to work, however. No sound may be heard under the singing tires, and his stalking seems not to work He has to flush him, he thinks. He cannot walk past him, or let him burrow in and not flush him. He cannot do that.

He speaks. On a sudden thought that he can flush him with words, if not with the sound of his footsteps, he hears himself as if another person call out, “Vernon—I know you’re here!”

Nothing happens. Scanning, concentrating on the angle, staying in, creating its vortex as he takes more steps, he calls out, “I know you’re here. Why don’t you come out? I don’t know exactly where you are, but I know you’re here.”

He takes more steps. His pistol, hanging in his right hand, his police .38, feels as heavy as a brick. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he calls out. “I want to talk to you, I don’t want to hurt you.”

He pauses, listens and watches. Nothing happens.

“Stop walking! I can see you!”
a voice suddenly shouts.

Dulac stops. He crouches some, has lifted the pistol some, although it remains in one hand, is looking, studying, trying to trace the sound. “I want to talk,” he calls out. “That’s all.”

It doesn’t work; nothing happens.

He takes another step then, and another.
“Stop right there!”
the voice cries out again.

Dulac stops—holds. He has him now, he thinks. Washed pebbles, he thinks. He has him now. He takes another step.

“If you only want to talk, why do you keep walking!”
the voice wails at him.

Dulac’s focus homes in on the pile of washed pebbles, a pile the size of a car, the right side, he thinks, yes, he thinks; he takes another step.

He breaks! There he goes. From the left. He breaks into a run through other obstructions; as Dulac swings on him, tries as he squeezes off a round to keep him in view, he knows he has missed, doesn’t know where the round may have hit, is running at once himself, loping, jumping to the side to see if he can get another angle on him, can spot him in an opening.

He does glimpse him again. Jogging, pistol down, passing through a row of the great reinforced concrete posts, he sees him for just a second, a blink or two, as he is running back across the street. Dulac forces his own legs back into motion, lifts them one after another and curses himself again for not being able to say the right thing. And he remarks to himself as he runs, tells himself not even to think that the suspect is a lifetime younger. Think only that the suspect will quit first, he tells himself. Think only that, that he is frightened and he will quit first and you will overtake him and take him back. Think only that. Think that if he should get away, another child’s life will be taken, because you were not good enough, because you did not give all there was to give when it counted. Think that.

He loses sight of him and regains sight. He jogs on, loses sight again, but maintains his line. He chugs and slogs through weeds, and coming to the road again, suddenly—its nearness surprises him—he sees the suspect already across the street and starting up the hill there next to the solid bridge foundation which fills that side of the road. There is no clear shot here, and he begins to attempt to return his weapon to its holster as he is running into the street, but seeing a car coming on holds up both hands, the pistol in his right, skyward—which, he realizes too late, only terrifies the driver, a woman, the only passenger, sending her squealing rubber around him—as he shouts after her,
“Stop, help, police emergency!”

He goes on, relatching his pistol. Beside the bridge foundation—a massive stone understructure with the bulk of a pyramid—is a path going up the long gradual hill among scrubby stunted trees and brush, and there is the suspect, on the path, almost on all fours, digging and pulling—Dulac is already after him—disappearing from view again within larger trees and brush.